In a mid-1960s psychiatric ward in Waterloo, London, women suffered from various mental disorders, sedated and treated under psychiatrist William Sargant's controversial methods. These included enforced narcosis, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), and surgical lobotomy. Patients, deprived of dignity and agency, were subjected to Sargant's absolute authority. Notably, actress Celia Imrie recalls her personal experience under Sargant's care, highlighting the distressing reality of treatments like ECT. The ward closed in 1973, and Sargant destroyed many case records before dying in 1988 without facing investigation, leaving a troubling legacy in mental health treatment.
Sargant claimed that a combination of enforced narcosis and ECT could fix disturbed minds. Failing that, the treatment would be surgical lobotomy.
In her remarkable and haunting testimony, Imrie remembers Sargant as tall with an evil presence. Though she doesn't believe she had electro-shock treatment, she witnessed a woman in a neighbouring bed going through it.
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